|9780822968528|A Critical History of the Green Revolution|In The Globalization of Wheat, Marci R. Baranski explores Norman Borlaug’s complicated legacy as godfather of the Green Revolution. Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for his role in fighting global hunger, Borlaug, an American agricultural scientist and plant breeder who worked for the Rockefeller Foundation, left a legacy that divides opinions even today. His high-yielding dwarf wheat varieties, known as miracle seeds, effectively doubled and tripled crop yields across the globe, from Kenya to India and Argentina to Mexico due to their wide adaptation. But these modern seeds also required expensive…

|9780822948575|The Correspondence, January 1878-November 1881|The 500 letters in this sixteenth volume of The Correspondence of John Tyndall document the period from January 1, 1878, to December 31, 1881. They chart a defining stage in the later life and career of an aging John Tyndall with unprecedented detail. Key developments evidence the fragility of a self-fashioned Carlylean hero, one whose sustenance increasingly relied on the companionate, domestic partnership that he enjoyed with his wife, Louisa. While they vacationed in the new summer home they built together in the Swiss Alps, where they experienced a shared reverence for nature, Louisa immersed herself…

|9780822949251|Bio-Inspired Objects and the Engineering of Life|For centuries, scientists have looked to nature for models when inventing new technologies. This book shows how ideas drawn from biology have inspired new ways of making and thinking—from robots modeled on living organisms to materials that mimic natural processes. Through vivid examples from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, it explores how these “bio-inspired” innovations reshape what we know about science, design, and the natural world itself. By bringing together the history of science and the philosophy of technology, Marco Tamborini reveals how evolving research practices blur the boundaries between the natural and the…

|9780822968429|Bio-Inspired Objects and the Engineering of Life|For centuries, scientists have looked to nature for models when inventing new technologies. This book shows how ideas drawn from biology have inspired new ways of making and thinking—from robots modeled on living organisms to materials that mimic natural processes. Through vivid examples from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, it explores how these “bio-inspired” innovations reshape what we know about science, design, and the natural world itself. By bringing together the history of science and the philosophy of technology, Marco Tamborini reveals how evolving research practices blur the boundaries between the natural and the…

|9780822968696|History and Physics in Nineteenth-Century Germany|Disciplinary Connections uncovers the intertwined origins of two fields that shaped nineteenth-century thought: history and physics. Offering the first combined perspective on their development, Sjang ten Hagen reveals a time when these disciplines were seen as parallel modes of knowledge rather than as opposites within the “sciences” and “humanities.” Focusing on German-speaking scholars, this book traces how historians and physicists mutually influenced one another—sharing research practices, teaching methods, and emerging ideals of “fact” and “exactitude.” By examining their reciprocal evolution, this book shows how both fields helped define what counted as reliable knowledge in modern…